DETROIT — It was David Fry who saved the Cleveland Guardians’ season on Thursday night, but the resurgent efforts of the team’s two best players — José Ramírez and Emmanuel Clase — had Cleveland riding high as it staved off elimination and forced a winner-take-all Game 5 at home after a 5-4 win over the Detroit Tigers.
Ramírez, who had just one hit in the first three games of the series, tattooed Detroit lefty Tyler Holton’s changeup for a go-ahead solo homer in the fifth inning. It was the hardest homer Ramírez has hit all season — you have to go back to last April to find a higher homer exit velocity. It was unleashed with the kind of pent-up emotion that only postseason baseball can provide.
“It had to feel so good for him,” Guardians manager Stephen Vogt said. “It energized our dugout like you wouldn’t believe.”
Ramírez, whose seven regular-season homers off changeups was tied for the league lead, is coming off another terrific regular season. But his playoff track record has been uneven. At times he’s dazzled, like in Cleveland’s 2016 run to the World Series, in which he had 15 hits and scored six runs. Or the 10-hits he collected across two rounds in 2022. At times, though, he’s struggled. In 2018’s division series against the Houston Astros, Ramírez didn’t register a hit. The year prior, against the New York Yankees, Ramírez went just 2-for-20.
Detroit spent the first three games shutting Ramírez down, when it chose to pitch to him. It bothered Ramírez more than he let on, and he took it all out on his bat, slamming it into the ground to “let all the energy go” as he started his trot around the bases.
Clase had similar demons to vex this series. It was only three days ago that the 26-year-old, who had one of the finest seasons for a reliever in recent history, did the unthinkable: allow multiple runs. Clase, who allowed just five earned runs in 74 1/3 regular-season innings, grooved a pitch Monday to Detroit’s Kerry Carpenter that landed in Progressive Field’s right-field seats, leaving a stunned sellout home crowd to digest a brutal 3-0 outcome.
How did that happen? Cleveland had rode a lights-out bullpen, led by Clase’s 47 saves, to an AL Central title. He was as lockdown as it gets.
Clase’s Game 2 blip, the Guardians felt, was just that. An outlier in an otherwise otherworldly season. But October has a way of making mountains out of molehills, of letting momentum, good or bad, snowball. Clase — who has always welcomed being in tough situations — was eager to get back on the bump, knowing the team’s season would hang in the balance.
Cleveland, faced with a win or go-home scenario, had talked before the game about using Clase for more than an inning if needed. That opportunity presented itself when Detroit put runners on first and second with one out in the eighth. Clase
“(There were) a lot of strong emotions,” Clase said through an interpreter. “Especially getting the trust back from the manager to get me in that role and (give me) that responsibility.”
There was never a question of whether Vogt’s — or any of his teammates’ — faith was shaken. Clase, who watched the Tigers pounce on his slider in Game 2, went back to his best pitch — his cutter. He worked out of trouble in the eighth, and got Jace Jung to ground out and Matt Vierling to go down on a check-swing that hit 100 mph to close out the win in the ninth.
“He gave up a three-run homer and the world all panicked and freaked out for no reason whatsoever,” said catcher Austin Hedges. “What he went out there and did (tonight) is exactly what we expect out of him every time. He’s gonna get weak contact and he’s gonna strike guys out.”
Clase, who had been asked for more than three outs just once during the regular season, wasn’t sure how long he’d go Thursday night, but was prepared to do whatever was necessary. He gave up a ninth-inning run after Justyn-Henry Malloy’s leadoff double, trading outs for the score as the Guardians held on and lived to fight another day.
“It gives us a nice deep breath when he’s in there,” said outfielder Steven Kwan. “I think people were probably a little curious about how it would be the next time but he came out throwing it well. It was good to see him out there.”
It doesn’t get any easier for Cleveland, who will face Tigers ace and likely AL Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal on Saturday. The Guardians have yet to decide who they will counter with. But if Ramírez and Clase are back on top of their game, it’s much easier to envision a scenario in which the Guardians pull this off, stave off elimination again, and advance to the American League Championship Series.
“They’re our best two players,” Vogt said. “They have been all year.”
Thursday served not just as a season-saving win, but as a welcome reminder.
(Top photo of Ramírez hitting a home run: Duane Burleson / Getty Images)
